WASHINGTON: Hong Kong’s PCCW Ltd (PCCW Group) has issued its results for the six months ended 30 June 2016, in which ‘core’ revenue (telecommunications, media/broadcasting and ITC solutions) increased by 2% year-on-year to HKD18.409 billion (USD2.373 billion). Core EBITDA decreased by 1% to HKD5.730 billion and core net profit attributable to equity holders decreased by 11% to HKD1.039 billion. Consolidated profits (including PCCW’s property/investment business) fell by 19% to HKD868 million.
PCCW’s Hong Kong telecoms division HKT posted a 3% rise in revenue to HKD16.388 billion in H1 2016, and a 2% EBITDA improvement to HKT5.865 billion, despite fixed broadband and fixed voice lines remaining static at 1.569 million and 2.650 million respectively, alongside a 4% decrease in the mobile customer base at its main ‘csl’ and ‘1O1O’ brands to 4.445 million at 30 June. The reported mobile operations did, however, improve their post-paid user percentage during the period under review, from 67.6% at mid-2015 to 69.9% twelve months later. Note that the reported mobile customer results exclude the group’s 60%-owned SUN Mobile budget cellular brand.
PCCW’s Hong Kong IPTV service – ‘Now TV’ – saw revenue fall 2% in 1H16 to HKD1.391 billion, with EBITDA also dropping, by 11% to HKD184 million, despite a net year-on-year gain of 16,000 subscribers to reach a total of 1.308 million at end-June 2016. PCCW’s newer OTT TV business under the ‘Viu’ brand posted six-month revenue of HKD271 million, a 64% hike, and is now available in 16 markets including recent entries to Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, India and Indonesia. The paying subscription base of the OTT service exceeded ten million in June 2016 (with ‘more than 1.6 million downloads in Hong Kong and over 600,000 downloads in Singapore’).
In the converged ICT/cloud business sector, the PCCW Solutions division reported a 6% rise in revenues to HKD1.587 billion and a 3% EBITDA improvement to HKD254 million in January-June 2016.
PCCW’s ‘Other’ business segment includes wireless broadband operations in the UK under the brand name Relish, which currently operates in central London. ‘Other’ revenue was HKD30 million in H1 2016 (1H15: HKD25 million) driven mainly by the Relish service, while EBITDA losses from the Other segment totalled HKD304 million (compared to HKD324 million in the year-ago period).
